Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-05-28
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1ailW Eagle
THE ENGLISH QUEEN.
A DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN LADY'S
FRANK OPINION OF VICTORIA.

What One Woman Thinks of Squeezing
Pennies Out of Poor School Children
to Build a Monument-Bread, Not
Stone, Needed.
One Of the most distinguished women of
America is in England on visit to coun-
trywoman. The house Of her hostess was re-
Gently invaded by local female British mag
nate, who almost demanded considerable
money contribution toward a celebration Of
the fiftieth year of Queen Victoria's reign.
The female British magnate was stricken
dumb in amazement at the manner in which
her request was refused, and the subsequent
outpouring of American opinion on the
whole jubilee business. Our distinguished
American, in letter to relative in this city,
described the incident and freed her mind
upon the subject in such vigorous English,
and with such unrestrained feeling, that we
are glad to give that portion of the letter:
"The idea of the women Of England doing
something to celebrate the jubilee year was
started purely for charitable purposes, and
they were greatly chagrined when the queen
announced her wish to use the money for
statue TO Prince Albert. So general has been
the dissatisfaction that her man Ponsonby
intended TO thus use only 81 .500-S7, 500.
THE POOR OF ENGLAND.
"The poor of England were never worse of
than they are to-day. While Victoria for
fifty years has been penuriously saving q
fabulous fortune for herself and worthless
progeny, the people have been slowly. but
surely, growing poorer and poorer, until
statesmen are at their wits ends to know what
to do. Neither the queen nor Prince Albert
ever suggested one plan for the benefit Of the
British people. He was a ridiculously weak
man, if history represents him fairly. He
never uttered one grand sentiment nor per-
formed one generous deed worth remember
ing. The general feeling among the people is
that the queen should celebrate her year of
jubilee by doing some grand thing for her
subjects.
Il do not agree with you in your jubilee
feeling one iota Tho idea originated among
sycophants and flunkies But wherever it
originated, the queens foot at once should
have been placed on penny contributions.
This penny dodge of the English government
and English upper class society has been tried
in SO many ways in order TO get money out of
the poor that to me it is inexpressibly con-
temptible. When the English established free
oNAcc+-s
they slipped mean, cunning little bylaw
within their system, that every child must
come to school with penny in his hand each
morning. A humane teacher told me she was
obliged to take the penny, but she usually
gave the child a roll of bread, with basket
of which she provided herself on her way to
school. Think of q child with his little
stomach empty passing q bake shop with
penny in his handi They tell me that many
Of the children are too hungry to learn
letter, and generous teachers feed them as
much as they can from their private purses
USE FOR JUBILEE PENNIES.
snow good queen should know something
of her system of education. And right here
would be a good use to make of jubilee pen
mics, flched from the poor. If 1 was queen
of England would rescind that by law and
establish a bread fund for hungry school
children. As an American queen l should
be SO ashamed 1 would not know where to
put my head if committees were securing all
our towns and cities, our tenement houses
and work shops, our farms on the vast
prairies, begging our miners, farmers, boat
men, the servants in our homes, to raise q
penny fund for me to build a monument to
my husband, who was q thousand times more
worthy of it than Prince Albert is! l should
think pennies from a starving people for such
purpose would make Prince Albert turn in
his grave. 1t makes me turn up the whites
of my eyes in the flesh, and why should it not
in the spirit make him turn entirely overa
"Art is all very well for those whose
stomachs are lined with nutritious food; but
the multitude would prefer bread TO monu-
ments If were cold and hungry would
rather have hot dinner than sit on frozen
curbstone looking at the progenitorial Prince
Albert in Parian marble. But if you, my
dear, wish TO cultivate the aesthetic cold, hun.
cry, naked, without a chip over their heads,
/, from my material standpoint, cry out,
Give them shelter, food, clothing and an
American stove, even though the world never
shall see monument to another pauper Ger
man princeling' think the English, Scotch
and Irish laborers would generally flock to
my standard while you might go junketing
with the queen on the coast of France in her
royal Yacht and to the French circus and pat
the ear of the baby elephant, rs all the great
London metropolitan journals have excitedly
reported her doing. How lovely that was in
her!"-New York Sun.
Electrical Theory and Practice.